Ancient Egyptian Acoustics and Sound Healing – John Reid

The ancient practice of acoustics and sound healing were known to the Egyptian priest architects. The ancient Egyptians laid the foundations of many sciences and some of their discoveries influenced Greek and Roman technologies. In the field of acoustics we know from the Roman architect, Vetruvius, that acoustic techniques were employed in both the Roman and Greek cultures; knowledge that was almost certainly inspired by acoustical principles obtained from ancient Egypt. Almost every person who has experienced the acoustics of the Great Pyramid’s King’s Chamber has walked away with a feeling of awe, in some cases coupled with an impression that the chamber was designed to be reverberative. For a relatively small chamber the reverberation is indeed extraordinary; one can literally hear one’s own breathing (when the fluorescent lighting is turned off!) and this experience often accompanies feelings of deep reverence. This notion of design implies a prior knowledge of acoustics.

John Stuart Reid is an English acoustics engineer with 40 years experience. Between1996 and 1997 he carried out a series of acoustics experiments in the Great Pyramid, including a hugely successful cymatics experiment in which ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs formed on a membrane stretched over the sarcophagus and sprinkled with sand. It was this cymatics experiment that led him to birth the CymaScope, the world’s first instrument that allows sound to be made visible. He also underwent a major healing of his lower back during the 1997 experiment that led him on a journey of discovery into the science underpinning sound healing. http://www.cymascope.com